Today I decided I had put it off long enough, I needed to work on the neck angle and adjusting the bolt holes to compensate for the neck block installation problem I had in the beginning. The first thing I did was to start by filing the two bolt holes, and truss rod hole so the entire neck assembly could slide upwards towards the top allowing the fingerboard to line up with the top. I filed a little, and installed the neck, disassembled, filed, reassembled on and on and on again. Finally I had the holes so the neck lined up flush with the top, the truss rod fits in it's hole, and the bolts all line up. Once that was done, I took a long straight piece of MDF and laid it on the neck over the top to simulate the fingerboard. I was very surprised to see that it lined up almost perfectly right off the bat. The only thing interfering with it fitting perfectly flat was the very slight bow of the top caused by the radius I put in the top. I marked where the fingerboard was and sanded the top slightly using a board half covered in sandpaper. I used the neck as a guide with the sandpaper on the top, and the bare wood on the neck. It only took me a few minutes to get it so it laid very flat. While I had it all assembled, I decided to see how the fingerboard lines up with the bridge. I marked out the bridge location, set it in place, and then put a straight edge across the frets over the bridge. It is lined up very well. It just skims over the bridge just like it is supposed to do. My dreadnaught was not that easy. I had to do quite a bit of shaping on the neck to get it all to line up.
One thing I have been overlooking is gluing on the piece of maple on the neck tail. I realized that the tail sits almost flush with the back, and the maple is 1/8" thick. The tail therefore needed to be trimmed so the maple will end up flush with the back. I threw together a makeshift jig on my chop saw so I could cut the tail straight and made the cut. I traced out the outline on the maple and cut out a piece. Once it was all glued and clamped I decided to call it a day and head inside. I didn't get the fingerboard glued down but will get it done tomorrow. This thing is really starting to look like a guitar!
First things first..... See that top number? That's right, we got above freezing today! First time in what seems like a month or more.
Here are the bolt holes elongated. I had to do a little more for the truss rod end still.
This is how the neck angle fit before any sanding. You can see the slight bow in the top causing the board to not touch the neck right next to the guitar. Pretty darned close if you ask me!
This is my little sanding stick. I sanded only in the spot where the fingerboard is over the top. I really didn't have much sanding to do.
Here you can see the spot that I leveled out. Now it all fits flat.
This is how much the tail piece would have been past the back of the body if I didn't cut the tail.
My quick little cutting jig. Nothing more than the neck tenon fit inside my lockdown rail to hold it secure, a block under the spot being cut to help prevent tearout, and a shim to hold it straight. I used my square to make sure that it sat perfectly square to the table and saw blade.
The tail all glued up and clamped.
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